For this drawing I wanted to use an image that had high focus in the foreground and a really soft and blown out background. I knew I’d be able to achieve the contrast with graphite and charcoal.I chose a reference photo that was originally in color, but I changed it to black and white to mimic the media I’d be using. I focused first on the figure in the foreground and really paid attention to the details, depth, and values in the hair since that would be what everyone looks at first. A lot of it consisted of laying down darker values and using a brush to blend and an eraser to remove for highlights. Once I got to the background I used more charcoal to get a rich black color and used my brush to diffuse all the hard edges to give it that out of focus look.